Trudging On
by museme87
Summary: Sometimes it's the survivors who lose the most.   Drabble series, Lily/James, Remus/Sirius
1. Lily

**Warnings: **mentions of (canon) character death, AU

**Author's Notes: **The first installment of my AU drabble series. This was based off the prompt "Lily/James, James' Quidditch jumper"**  
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><p>She carries it down from the attic one day, just after Christmas, when the winter nights have bloomed into their full frigidity and the house feels strangely empty. It hadn't been easy, opening the large steamer trunk; years have passed since she'd originally laid the remnants of her life inside—clothes and journals and photos that had become too much to bear witness to day after day.<p>

It feels strange to hold in her hands after all this time—the thick, knitted fabric, the still brilliant scarlet and gold. As she steps lightly down the stairs, she brings the jumper to her freckled nose, breathing in the musky scent that she will be able to place until the day she dies.

James.

James who had only truly existed as a flicker in her lifetime, who had made the ultimate sacrifice despite the protection his blood purity afforded him. James who lives on in their son.

Harry.

Her lips pull into a mother's proud smile as she sees him snuggled up on the sofa in his pajamas, petting the family cat and watching the telly. It amazes her how, in the blink of an eye, he's grown out of nappies and bottles, out of baby talk and toddling about the house. Somehow in the course of these past few years, Harry has become six years old and more like James by the day in both behavior—much to her frustration—and looks.

"Love," she calls, and Harry looks up at her from the sofa.

Lily winds her way around the couch, settling down on the plush seat next to him where he lays under his favorite blanket. Pausing, her green eyes fall to the jumper in her hands, fingers working over the knitting as if it will somehow provide her with the courage to continue on. However, no strength comes, only the thought of giving Harry a piece of the father he will never know. It brings tears to her eyes, and Lily fights to sniffle them into submission.

"You asked about Daddy the other day. In the picture, remember?"

"The Kidditch one?"

She laughs at her son's mispronunciation—a testament to the joy he brings her in even the most difficult of times—and wonders what James would think of his precious baby's inability to properly say his favorite sport. Surely if James and Sirius had been in his life longer than they were, it would have been Harry's perfectly pronounced fifth or sixth word.

"Yeah, that one."

Harry nods to her, telling her that he does recall that conversation. With a small, tragic smile, Lily presents him with his father's Quidditch jumper—the one he wore as Captain when he claimed the House Cup their final year, the one she wore on those unbearable nights that had James out for the Order.

Taking it into his small hands, Harry looks up at her with his own bright green eyes that so clearly read uncertainty. What should he do with it? He understands that it means something to her, surely—her tears tell him that much—but he doesn't know it's importance at such a young age.

"I thought you might want to see it. This is the jumper he wore in that picture."

For a long while Harry stares at it thoughtfully. Lily wonders if he's thinking about James, about what little he does know about the man who helped give him life. She and Remus fight to keep the memory of James and Sirius alive for Harry when they, themselves, can't be here for him—James because he was cruelly ripped from them and Sirius because he avenged James' death that rainy night.

And it's hard. God, the number of times she and Remus have broken down because of it, broken down like she's breaking down right now. Brushing away her tears, she tries to think about how James would be proud of her and Harry, be pleased with how she and Remus have raised his son. Sometimes that is her sole consolation as she lies, alone, in their marriage bed, night after night.

"I miss him," Harry says finally.

Instinctively, Lily wraps their son in a tight hug, kissing his mop of black hair as her tears wet the unruly locks. Whether Harry truly remembers James or simply misses him because he knows he should, she isn't sure. But Lily rocks the both of them comfortingly, regardless, with a whispered, "Me too, baby. Me too."


	2. Remus

**Pairing:** Remus/Sirius  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> AU, mention of sexual situations, mention of (canon) character death, angst  
><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Part II of what has apparently become my "Trudging On" drabble series. This second installment was inspired by a prompt of "Remus or Sirius (and/or Remus/Sirius), black coffee". Unbetaed, but proofread.

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><p>When the leaves begin to turn and fall and the days grow ever shorter, Remus finds himself making his coffee black and strong. It tastes like toxic sludge on his tongue, the bitterness making him nearly gag with every sip. Some days, he thinks that injecting the caffeine into his veins might be less painful.<p>

But despite that thought, he prepares his coffee the same way—toxic sludge be damned.

It doesn't occur to him until late October why it is that he burdens himself with each cup. Remus discovers, as he _truly_looks at his cottage for the first time in what could be months, that he needs the bitterness and the self-inflicted pain to continue on.

Without the caffeine to keep him awake, he'll drift into a dream world where all his problems have righted themselves. He'll be embraced by his imprisoned lover, his star, his _Sirius_. They'll make love over and over again, and Remus will beg Sirius to never let him go.

Then day will come. He will wake up hard and wanting, yet alone. Remus will pull himself into unwanted fruition before raging at the pillow next to him, untouched for nigh on five years now. His fist will meet the smooth, perfectly broken-in pillow-casing, feathers crushing beneath his knuckles. And once he has finished with the abuse, the pillow will fly across the room in one last retaliation, taking a lamp or a photo or a half-smoked pack of cigarettes with it.

It's played out like that for so long now that it can't happen any other way.

Now Remus stands in the tiny kitchen, taking in the sight of the home he had made with Sirius. If anyone who hadn't known what had happened that rainy October night would come into this cottage, they would think it occupied by two people. Because Remus has not moved a thing since Sirius' imprisonment for the murder of Peter.

He just _can't_.

So on the coat rack hangs Sirius' leather jacket—and it is only removed when Remus needs to feel Sirius' embrace—and beneath it rests well-worn, motor-bike boots. Sirius' desk remains untouched, the five-year-old Quidditch Weekly still turned to page twenty-eight. Remus knows the article by heart now—Arrows to Obliterate Falcons for Britain's Cup—and longs to tell Sirius that his favorite team _had_ won that year. Next to it lies a quill, a now-dried-out bottle of ink, and a half written letter to the Potters.

In the closet hangs his clothes. In the shed his bike is still parked. The photos of their life together still adorn the wall in a way that Lily's treasured photos of James could no longer. And it's strange how differently they grieve the men they've lost.

Only one thing has changed irreversibly since October 31st, 1981, and that is the ashtray—half filled with Sirius' cigarette butts—that Harry had spilled last year as he was playing on the coffee table. Remus had promptly run to the bathroom and broken into pieces; Lily had joined him not long after, rubbing his back soothingly and kissing his temple.

And she had said, voice quivering, "he won't be back, Remus."

And he had replied, weakly, with, "I know."

He does know. At least, most of the year. But come autumn, his mind somehow struggles with the idea of Sirius' permanent imprisonment. And on October 31st, he can't remember that at all. He waits faithfully at the kitchen table until 1:24 AM—the time when he was firecalled by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement informing him that his lover was a murderer—before he realizes that Sirius isn't coming home.

So like a drug to keep his mind firmly grounded in truth, to keep his pleasant dreams at bay, Remus drinks his coffee.

Black and strong.


End file.
